Sapphire hd 2600 Pro - Ati Bloggo News 2010!

Devil May Cry

The tests were done using the demo version during the scene 2, with the maximum settings, DX 10 APIs and Anti-Aliasing 4x.

- 1920 x 1200 - 40
- 1680 x 1050 - 44
- 1280 x 1024 - 53

Crysis Warhead

For the tests, the Hocbench benchmark tools were used during the airfield map, high quality settings with Anisotropic filter 16x enabled through the benchmark, and no Anti-Aliasing.

- 1920 x 1200 - 6
- 1680 x 1050 - 8
- 1280 x 1024 - 10

As the tests have confirmed, the card places itself at a “lower” level, as it was supposed to be. ATI has indeed developed this card to be an affordable solution to those users that do not require extreme gaming quality, or that are occasional gamers.

The Last Remnant

The integrated benchmarking tool doesn’t allow the user to choose specific quality settings except for the video resolution.

- 1920 x 1200 - 28
- 1680 x 1050 - 35
- 1280 x 1024 - 50

DIRT 2

An automatic benchmark batch that needs to be executed from a command line. The settings were high, AA 4x and DirectX 10

- 1920 x 1200 - 23
- 1680 x 1050 - 26
- 1280 x 1024 - 32

S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Call of Prypat

The game has an automatic benchmarking tool. In the case of this test, we set the game without anti-aliasing, high quality and DX10, and the reference values are related to the average obtained on the “day” scenario.

Values expressed on FPS

- 1920 x 1200 - 25
- 1680 x 1050 - 28
- 1280 x 1024 - 34.4

Call of Duty 5

The test was done using Fraps, Anti-Aliasing 4x and all settings in the maximum values possible.

Values expressed in FPS

- 1920 x 1200 - 37
- 1680 x 1050 - 45
- 1280 x 1024 - 56

Game Tests

Tom Clancy’s HAWX

The tests were done using the integrated benchmark and the demo version, with all settings in high except for the low ambient occlusion.

Very High - AA 4x - DX10

- 1920 x 1200 - 69
- 1680 x 1050 - 81
- 1280 x 1024 - 98

Game Tests

Far Cry 2

The tests for Far Cry 2 were done with high quality, also enabling and disabling anti-aliasing 4x.

Far Cry 2 - High Quality - AA 4x - DX 10

Values are expressed in FPS

- 1920 x 1200 - 19
- 1680 x 1050 - 22
- 1280 x 1024 - 27

Quality Very High - No AA - DX10

- 1920 x 1200 - 24
- 1680 x 1050 - 27
- 1280 x 1024 - 31

World in Conflict

The tests were done using the integrated benchmark, with very high qualities, anti-aliasing 4x and anisotropic filter 16x.

Values are expressed in FPS

- 1920 x 1200 - 12
- 1680 x 1050 - 13
- 1280 x 1024 - 17

The behavior in those two games is within the expectations: developed on the RV830 GPU as the HD 5670, but with inferior frequencies and DDR3 memories instead of the GDDR5 ones, the HD 5570 doesn’t really reach the same performance levels. It’s a clear sign of exactly which market range it belongs to.

In-Game Tests

Tom Clancy’s HAWX

AA 4x / DX10

- 2560 x 1600 - 46
- 1920 x 1200 - 84

AA 4x/DX10.1

- 2560 x 1600 - 63
- 1920 x 1200 - 86

Crysis Warhead

Frost map, AA4x, Anix 16x, DX10

- 2560 x 1600 - 25
- 1920 x 1200 - 38

The behavior of Sapphire’s solution during the tests was according to the expectations: the small overclock that this card comes with by default gives a few frames more than a reference HD 5870. The performance increase is smaller with some more demanding games, but the bottom line is: The small overclocking doesn’t show any real big enhancement, in a bigger scale.

Far Cry 2 - High Quality / AA 4x / DX10

Values Expressed in FPS

- 2560 x 1600 - 51
- 1920 x 1200 - 75

Far Cry 2 - Ultra Quality / DX10

- 2560 x 1600 - 64
- 1920 x 1200 - 83

Tests

In order to properly analyze the card, an Intel Core i7 965 Extreme platform was used, with the clock frequency at 3.2 Ghz and Turbo Mode enabled. The clock frequency then goes to 3.33 GHz in the moment the processor is used in full load, as the Turbo Mode technology activates a frequency multiplier when 2 or more cores are used simultaneously, plus 6GB of RAM, with the clock frequency at 1.600 Mhz.

The games tested were Far Cry 2, Tom Clancy’s HAWX and Crysis Warhead, and we’ll go into detail in the next few articles.

Far Cry 2

The tests were done with the game in high quality for all settings, with DirectX 10 and Anti-aliasing 4x.

- 1920 x 1200 - 39
- 1680 x 1050 - 44
- 1280 x 1024 - 53

With FarCry 2, it shows the good work from AI on their Catalyst drivers: since its first introduction, the game has always demonstrated a better performance with the nVIDIA-based architecture, which changed with the latest Catalyst drivers, and the results can be seen clearly.

Call of Duty 5

The FPS measurement was done using Fraps, anti-aliasing 4x and all quality settings in the maximum level possible, using the game’s configuration panel.

- 1920 x 1200 - 55
- 1680 x 1050 - 65
- 1280 x 1024 - 78

Call of Duty 5 has usually always given better performances for the nVIDIA GT200 architecture, and in this case, it’s not different.